Abstract

“Justice” amplified on social media. Anger directed by the “truly weak” toward the “supposedly weak.” In an age when so many people feel they are being shortchanged by society, what can we learn from the hostility and resentment erupting across contemporary life? And how should we confront them? This incisive work examines the forces driving division, outrage, and grievance in modern Japan.

Author’s Information

Masaaki Ito was born in 1961. He graduated from the Faculty of Foreign Studies at Tokyo University of Foreign Studies and completed his doctoral studies at the Graduate School of Interdisciplinary Information Studies, University of Tokyo. He has worked at IBM Japan, SoftBank, and served as an associate professor at the Faculty of Contemporary Society and the Faculty of Media Production at Aichi Shukutoku University, and as a visiting researcher at the Department of Japanese Studies at the University of Erlangen in Germany. He is currently a professor at the Department of Contemporary Society, Faculty of Letters, Seikei University. His publications include "Thinking about the Society of Flaming" (Chuko Shinsho La Clef), "The Historical Sociology of the Internet Rightists" (Seikyusha), "Media Theory of Demonstrations" (Chikuma Shobo), and "Flash Mobs" (NTT Publishing).